Case 7
- European Voyages to Pacific Before Cook 1
Tancred Robinson (Editor). An Account of Several Late Voyages & Discoveries to the South and North. London: Printed for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, 1694.
The oldest book in the McNab Voyages Collection is this late seventeenth century work often referred to as ‘Narborough’s Voyages’. It comprises accounts of the voyages of John Narborough in 1669-71; Abel Tasman in 1642-43; John Wood’s attempt on the North-East Passage (1676); and Frederich Martens’ expedition to Spitzbergen (1671).
Dedicated to Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), Secretary of the Admiralty of England, and edited by Sir Tancred Robinson (d. 1748), it contains one of the earliest English accounts of Abel Tasman’s 1642 voyage from Batavia, in which he landed at Tasmania and anchored at Wharewharangi Bay, off the west coast of the New Zealand’s South Island.
Tancred Robinson (Editor). An Account of Several Late Voyages & Discoveries to the South and North. London: Printed for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, 1694.
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Richard Walter. Voyage Autour du Monde: Fait dans les Annees MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV par George Anson. Nouvelle edition. Amsterdam; Leipzig: Arkstee & Merkus, 1751.
While Britain was at war with Spain in 1740, George Lord Anson (1697-1762) led a squadron of six ships on a mission to disrupt or capture Spain’s possessions on the western coast of South America. Anson managed to capture a Spanish treasure galleon near Manilla, which he sold at Canton. He returned to Britain in 1744 via China, thus completing a circumnavigation. Anson’s voyage was characterised by great hardship, with the loss of five ships and hundreds of men to disease, chiefly scurvy.
An account of the voyage was compiled from the papers of Anson and published under his direction by Richard Walter (1716?-85). The displayed work is a French version of Anson’s book, printed three years after the first English edition.
Richard Walter. Voyage Autour du Monde: Fait dans les Annees MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV par George Anson. Nouvelle edition. Amsterdam; Leipzig: Arkstee & Merkus, 1751.
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